staugustine.com: Archive

Published Wednesday, May 14, 2003

NATIONAL REPORT

Nichols to stand trial on state murder counts

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Terry Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing conspirator who is serving life without parole in federal prison, must stand trial in state court on 160 counts of first-degree murder that could bring the death penalty, a judge ruled Tuesday.

The decision by District Judge Allen McCall essentially means Nichols will be tried again for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.

Nichols, 48, will be arraigned next Tuesday.

Bombing mastermind Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder after a federal trial and he was executed in June 2001. Nichols was convicted in 1997 of federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges. The jury deadlocked over whether to give him the death penalty for conspiracy, so the sentence fell to the judge, who under law could impose no more than life without parole.

Last SLA fugitive pleads guilty in 28-year-old shooting

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The last of five former Symbionese Liberation Army members to face murder charges in a 28-year-old bank robbery killing pleaded guilty Tuesday in the death of a woman who was shot as she deposited her church's Sunday collection.

James Kilgore, 55, one of the nation's most wanted fugitives for a quarter century, pleaded guilty in a courtroom about a dozen miles from the suburban Sacramento bank where the SLA netted $15,000 in cash and Myrna Opsahl died from a shotgun blast into her left side.

Air Force officials charge cadet with rape

DENVER -- An Air Force Academy cadet was charged Tuesday with raping and sodomizing a female cadet in a dorm room last fall.

Cadet Douglas Meester, a sophomore, is the first cadet to be charged with rape since a sex scandal broke at the academy earlier this year.

He was also charged with indecent assault and providing alcohol to two cadets in the Oct. 18 incident. An Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a pre-trial hearing, was set for today to determine if Meester will face a court-martial.

Students suspended, may be expelled for hazing

GLENVIEW, Ill. -- Teenage girls caught on videotape brutally hazing their classmates were suspended from their suburban high school for 10 days and could be barred from prom and graduation.

In addition to the suspensions, which began Monday, officials are recommending the girls be expelled from Glenbrook North High School. The students have three days to begin the appeals process. Within hours of Monday's disciplinary decision, one of the students filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court seeking a temporary restraining order to keep the school from suspending her, according to her attorney.

But the World Health Organization warned Tuesday the city might yet face a new upsurge and that its migrant workers were carrying the disease into the vulnerable countryside.

China's official Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday that 10,000 Beijing residents were in isolation -- down from a peak of about 16,000 last week.

China's Health Ministry reported 10 new SARS fatalities -- half in Beijing -- raising its death toll to 262. The total number of infections rose by 80 to 5,086.

U.N. seeks peacekeeping force to halt Congo violence

KINSHASA, Congo -- Heavily armed ethnic groups renewed a battle for an eastern Congo city Tuesday as the United Nations tried to muster an international force to quell the fighting.

More than 10,000 people in the city of Bunia took refuge at the airport and a U.N. compound from violence that has resulted in at least 160 deaths in the past week, a U.N. spokeswoman, Patricia Tome, said by telephone from the scene. Among those killed Sunday were two Catholic priests and 48 civilians who had taken shelter at a church.

Mexican leader meets with former President Bush

MEXICO CITY -- Former President George Bush reassured President Vicente Fox on Tuesday that U.S. and Mexican relations are still strong, despite their differences over the war in Iraq, Mexico's foreign secretary said.

The elder Bush believes that "the great friendship" between his son and Fox remains firm, Luis Ernesto Derbez said after the hourlong meeting. Bush did not speak with reporters. Derbez said the former U.S. president and Fox also discussed ways to improve economic relations between the three partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement: Mexico, the United States and Canada.

George Bush's office in Texas described the trip as private, and White House officials said earlier they were not sponsoring it.

Sharon takes hard line on Jewish settlements

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon staked out tough positions on Jewish settlements, suggesting in remarks published Tuesday he will try to hold much of the West Bank's heartland.

Sharon spoke after Secretary of State Colin Powell failed to win Israel's acceptance of a new Mideast peace plan, and days before the Israeli leader was to meet his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, in their first summit in nearly three years.

Sharon told The Jerusalem Post that Israel would retain some settlements in the heart of the West Bank, including Beit El, Ariel and Emmanuel. Israeli control over those areas would make it difficult to establish a territorially contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank, a goal of the U.S.-backed peace plan, the so-called "road map."

Two Norwegians shot, wounded north of Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two Norwegian peacekeepers were shot and wounded north of the capital Tuesday by a renegade Afghan soldier, an Afghan commander in the area said.

The peacekeepers were traveling between Kabul and Bagram -- where U.S. and coalition forces have their main base -- when shots were fired at their vehicle shortly after noon, said Lt. Col. Thomas Lobbering, a spokesman for the 5,000-strong multinational force.